A Monumental Time in the Orkney Islands

After a sea day we arrived in the far north of Scotland, the Orkney islands. This place was fascinating. More historic monument per area then any other place in the UK and these people had to contend with 100km/h winds at least once every winter. The hottest temperature on record was 24C; we were greeted with 22. Where these ancient people, living such a harsh climate, found the time to play with large stones is beyond me.
One of the many monuments was the Ring of Brogar, consisting of 66 stones and dating back between 2000 and 3000BC. On many of the stones you can see graffiti. All the scrawling I saw dated back to the 1800s. I hear that there are places where you can find Viking graffiti; things like, “your wife can only kill two men with an axe.” You know, domestic sort of things.

In the 50s there was a really big storm in the Orkneys. The waves shifted a lot of sand and the ancient village of Skara Brae was discovered. It dates back more then 5000 years and is a very well preserved community. They had found ways to make little salt water tanks in the ground with rocks so they could keep live seafood in the house on those cold days. They even enjoyed things like an attached toilet room. If he plans to be productive, a guy just can’t relieve himself out in 100km/h winter winds. I wonder if they fought over the toilet seat. There was even shelves, as shown, for the sweaters to be kept.